Pete Dye essay on Jack Nicklaus the course architect

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In honor of Jack Nicklaus' 70th birthday, PGATOUR.COM recently asked some of the people close to the Golden Bear for their thoughts on various aspects of Nicklaus' extraordinary life. In this essay, Pete Dye -- one of golf's most influential course designers and the man behind TPC Sawgrass -- discusses Nicklaus the golf course architect.
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Pete Dye

I've known Jack for more than 55 years, before he was even a famous golfer. I actually finished ahead of him in the first U.S. Open he played in. When he was young, we used to talk a lot about golf course design -- Jack was never shy to tell me if he didn't like a hole and why.

As it turned out, I helped Jack break into the business. His first official course design was when we worked together at Harbour Town (home of the PGA TOUR's Verizon Heritage). But we've done only one other course together since then. The only time we went after the same course -- Shoal Creek in Birmingham -- Jack got it.

When he first started designing courses, he was doing almost all of it on his own. He had everything going left to right (which seemed natural, considering Jack primarily played a left-to-right shot). I used to be able to tell a Jack design just by looking at the holes, but not in a long time.

Jack has changed with the times, both with the changes in the game and the golf course design business. I think he's done a great job of keeping Muirfield Village (site of his Memorial Tournament) modernized with how far the guys hit the ball these days.

The thing I admire about Jack's design work is a lot of golf professionals want to stick their name on it and have someone else build it. Not Jack. He's been very active in his golf course design business. I don't know how he stays as busy as he does. It seems like he's got courses going up everywhere.

People ask me, is Jack as good a designer as he was a player? That's a tough question. Jack was the best golfer I've ever seen, and he's as good as anyone in the world in designing courses. By the time he retires -- if he ever does -- his golf courses will be all over the top rankings list.

I do know this: I've never had a closer friend than Jack.